May 14, Wednesday 9 a.m. - Skylab: A Home Above Our Home Planet -- A profile of America's First Space Station Produced by the Kennedy Space Center - HQ (Public and Media Channels)
MATTBLAK - 13/5/2008 10:42 AMI too think a mistake was made not launching the second Skylab. It was also a fact that despite there being several Block 2 Command & Service Modules left at the time (about 4), there were also only two Saturn 1B boosters left.
Proponent - 13/5/2008 7:22 AMQuoteMATTBLAK - 13/5/2008 10:42 AMI too think a mistake was made not launching the second Skylab. It was also a fact that despite there being several Block 2 Command & Service Modules left at the time (about 4), there were also only two Saturn 1B boosters left.It seems to me that there would have been 3 Saturn IBs available at the time: 12 were built, 5 were used in Apollo and 3 in the first set of Skylab missions. That's a total of 4 remaining, which becomes 3 if you reserve one for ASTP.
Proponent - 13/5/2008 6:22 AMIt seems to me that there would have been 3 Saturn IBs available at the time: 12 were built, 5 were used in Apollo and 3 in the first set of Skylab missions. That's a total of 4 remaining, which becomes 3 if you reserve one for ASTP.
Is anybody able to play devil's advocate and explain why the surplus Apollo/Skylab hardware never flew? I know it was about 'funding' but you don't have to be a genius to see that it's crazy to throw away perfectly good equipment whilst having the stated intention of building a space station a few years later. They must have expected STS to be really cheap if they actually believed it would save money to wait for it to come on line.
My humble understanding of things - Skylab/ ASTP Saturn IB were launched from LC-39B+ Milkstool. BUT as soon as ASTP concluded - July 1975- NASA started modifying LC-39s for the Shuttle. Say goodbye to Saturn V (LC-39A) and Saturn IB/ CSM (LC-39B)
I don't see why Shuttle and Saturn couldn't co-exist, the way Shuttle and Ares 1 are today, had a decision been made to do so. SNIPThis would have cost more money, of course, but it doesn't seem to me to be cost prohibitive.
Quote from: Kaputnik on 11/23/2008 02:54 pmIs anybody able to play devil's advocate and explain why the surplus Apollo/Skylab hardware never flew? I know it was about 'funding' but you don't have to be a genius to see that it's crazy to throw away perfectly good equipment whilst having the stated intention of building a space station a few years later. They must have expected STS to be really cheap if they actually believed it would save money to wait for it to come on line.Read the Frieling article that was cited earlier. It really was about funding. The problem was that launching the Skylab B would result in essentially repeating the work performed on the first one. They did a calculation that said that it would cost X amount of dollars (which they did not have) and all they would be able to do is repeat work already done. Plus, there were no more Apollo spacecraft to send up to it.They determined that in order to do significantly new work, they would have to spend even more money--which they also did not have.It seems ludicrous that they had a fully usable space station on the ground and did not fly it. But this is the classic example of "sunk costs." They had paid for that station, but in order to use it, they would have to spend additional money that they did not have in their budget. It's like having a new car and no money for gas. So you cannot drive it.
Money, money, money. NASA didn't have any. Their budget was essentially flat at the time, with all available funds going to shuttle development. In order to preserve/launch Skylab B, it would have taken more money than they had.
I am aware of that, hence I said it would have required more money (but not, I think, a great deal more money).
Perhaps the design of Skylab B was unsuited to longer missions? A repeat of the first Skylab would obviously have been of limited value.
It seems ludicrous that they had a fully usable space station on the ground and did not fly it. But this is the classic example of "sunk costs." They had paid for that station, but in order to use it, they would have to spend additional money that they did not have in their budget. It's like having a new car and no money for gas. So you cannot drive it.
While certainly not as sexy as the Freedom proposal, at least it would have been something. Depending on how you want to configure this station, operational capability could have been reached in 1-2 Shuttle flights.
Quote from: DfwRevolutionWhile certainly not as sexy as the Freedom proposal, at least it would have been something. Depending on how you want to configure this station, operational capability could have been reached in 1-2 Shuttle flights.To do what? There wouldn't be any room or resources to do anything.
I think the real missed opportunity wasn't Skylab II in the 70s, but in not flying *any* space station during the 80s. Perhaps we could have flown a modest, low-cost space station (in comparison to Freedom) by salvaging the Skylab II systems and integrating them into a new pressure vessel for launch in the Shuttle payload bay. What I'm describing is basically an American Mir. While certainly not as sexy as the Freedom proposal, at least it would have been something. Depending on how you want to configure this station, operational capability could have been reached in 1-2 Shuttle flights.
And what about use Skylab B ONLY for STS missions?Launch it in 1975-76,and upgrade it with Shuttle in 1982-83.
Quote from: carmelo on 11/25/2008 07:52 pmAnd what about use Skylab B ONLY for STS missions?Launch it in 1975-76,and upgrade it with Shuttle in 1982-83.How do you resupply it for 6-7 years with no US manned spaceflight capability? And where does the money come from?
Resupply for what?after the launch Skylab B is simply waiting for the first STS mission to laboratory.All systems in Skylab B for 6-7 years are "sleeping". Is a bad idea?
I don't want to imply that NASA are or were 'stupid'. There wasn't enough money to do everything. I guess what I really meant was that the people controlling the finances were being rather short-sighted
Okay, Mr. Frieling scanned his article and provided it to me to post here. He holds the copyright and all that.My suggestion is that for anybody who has a question about why Skylab B never flew, download this doc, print it out, and read it. You'll find it informative.
Fascinating article, thanks very much for obtaining it.It doesn't really paint a picture of a second Skylab, even on a 'replica' mission, as being scientifically worthless, though. In fact it really does seem to say that the budgetary pressures led to a lost opportunity.With the beneft of hindsight, and with what we now known abuot how long it took to get STS and a space station, is the scrapping of the hardware now seen as a mistake?
Well, rather than cutting something, you point out to those holding the purse strings that NASA has a mandate to do things cheaper, including a space station. Spend a comparatively small sum now, and save yourself a much bigger sum a few years down the road. It's about thinking medium rather than short term. Were the politicans really so short-sighted?
I suppose if you had to cut something, maybe postpone Viking. It was a massive program and there was no particular hurry to get to Mars since the Soviets were making a bit of a mess of it.
Of course, in my favourite 'alternate history' scenario, NASA would have evolved the Saturn family, creating a 'universal LV' derived from Saturn-1b with an F1a on the first stage, capable of similar payloads to STS;
perhaps that first stage could be made recoverable.
Yeah, it's fun to imagine what *might* have been...
I'd have kept the 8xH-1 configuration, for two reasons. First of all, if you keep the payload down a little bit, then you can tolerate the loss of an engine or even two (depending on when the second one fails and which one it is). That gives you higher over-all reliability. Secondly, it means you don't have to keep a low-volume production line open for the F-1 engine. In fact, you're economizing, because the Delta also uses essentially the H-1 engine.
No doubt--first-stage recovery was part of the plan as late as 1961, before the rush to the moon began. The question is, would there have been a sufficient number of launches to make recovery worthwhile?Optimistically, NASA might have flown maybe six a year, supporting a Skylab-like space station? I suspect the key factor would have been getting the Air Force to drop the Titan III-C in favor of the Saturn IB, just as it actually did agree to drop the Titan in favor of the Shuttle. The Titans III-C, -D and -E flew a total of about 60 times in the 20 years from the late 60s, so that's another three missions per year, for a total of nine. That's nothing like the flight rate that von B and crew were thinking of in 1960 when they proposed recovering the first stage, but maybe it still would have been enough, I dunno.
Quote from: Kaputnik on 11/28/2008 08:32 amQuote Yeah, it's fun to imagine what *might* have been...Yup, it is fun. A waste of time, but fun nonetheless . Must get back to work....It's no longer a waste of time if you manage to turn it into a readable novel, then sell the book...
Quote Yeah, it's fun to imagine what *might* have been...Yup, it is fun. A waste of time, but fun nonetheless . Must get back to work....
There was a good argument for going to Mars at that time--NASA had been developing a series of ever more ambitious Mars missions since the 1960s, but a setback in 1967--the cancellation of the Voyager-Mars program--had slowed everything down. Viking returned NASA to the more ambitious exploration strategy that it had been on before. Of course, that's a programmatic argument, not a scientific one. There's no reason to do any of this. Why not shut down the Mars program for a century or more and wait until all of our technologies have improved dramatically? Mars will always be there? Then again, why not do that for human spaceflight? We can just cancel it for several decades and wait until somebody creates a better class of humans.(And yeah, re Viking, that expensive mission had an unexpected result: so much emphasis was placed on the search for life that when it was not found, the US did not do another Mars mission for 17 years. A better approach might have been a less ambitious and less expensive mission than Viking.)
I suspect the key factor would have been getting the Air Force to drop the Titan III-C in favor of the Saturn IB, just as it actually did agree to drop the Titan in favor of the Shuttle.
1-Would it be fair to say that with such a complex, expensive, and high-profile mission, 'I don't know' wasn't an acceptable answer?2-One more technical question- how feasible would it have been to assume that Skylab-B, if launched in the mid to late 1970s, would have had the capacity to survive in orbit long enough to work in conjunction with STS, acting as the core of a small US space station, perhpas something designed to act as a stepping stone to Freedom, in the way that Gemini did for Apollo?
Quote from: Kaputnik on 11/30/2008 01:22 pm1-Would it be fair to say that with such a complex, expensive, and high-profile mission, 'I don't know' wasn't an acceptable answer?1-Yes.
1-Would it be fair to say that with such a complex, expensive, and high-profile mission, 'I don't know' wasn't an acceptable answer?
Could you go a little more into details. Viking did much more than looking for life. You don't always get the answers you desire. This is science.
Quote from: Proponent on 11/28/2008 11:36 amI suspect the key factor would have been getting the Air Force to drop the Titan III-C in favor of the Saturn IB, just as it actually did agree to drop the Titan in favor of the Shuttle. Never.
It [the Saturn IB] was more expensive and had no west capability.
Don't forget the T-IIIB types in the yearly flight rates.Titan was a family, Saturn IB wasn't
I'm inclined to agree that it never would have happened, but I'm thinking that more for political rather than technical reasons.I'm skeptical of the cost figures on several grounds. First of all, probably one reason that Titan looked cheaper was that its fixed costs were could be borne in large part by the Titan ICBM. But in 1970s, that advantage would vanish as ICBM run was completed.To top it all off, the III-C's capability to LEO was only about 70% that of the IB. Apparently that was adequate in 1970, but over then next two decades the Air Force spent billions upgrading the Titan (the 34D, the 4A and 4B) so that by the 90s it had about the same capability that the IB had demonstrated in 1966.I think you and I are looking at flight rates for different reasons. I was trying to estimate the demand for heavy launches, for which purpose the III-B is not relevant. If I understand your point correctly, you're referring to the fact that the III-B's relatively frequent launches lowered costs. That's a relevant point. In my scenario, I suppose I would transfer the III-B's payloads to the Atlas-Centaur. That wouldn't help Saturn's economics, but it would help Atlas's.But then it does mean building a West Coast launch capability not only for the IB, but for the Atlas-Centaur as well. I would have thought that wouldn't have been too big a deal, since VAFB was already capable of handling Atlas Agenas. And if SLC-6 could be adapted for the Shuttle, then I would think it could be more easily adapted for the IB, which was more conventional in form than the Shuttle and lighter than either the Shuttle or the III-C.
IIIC wasn't a LEO vehicle, It was a GSO vehicle.
IB would have required a Centaur for GSO missions. Both the Centaur addition and the high manpower costs of MSFC made the IB expensive
Atlas-Centaur wouldn't have worked on the west coast for those missions. Agena was an integral part of the mission
1. True, but drop the Transtage and you get the IIID, an LEO vehicle.2. To perform the missions demanded of it in the 70s and beyond, the Centaur had to be adapted to the T-III anyway. 3. Hmmm, hadn't thought of that. I suppose the stategy would be to accelerate the transition to a post-Agena platform.
I believe the Titan IIIC was considered as a replacement for the Saturn IB. And, as it turned out, with the halting of the Saturn IB/V lines, the Titan IIIC became the heavy lifter anyway
Another rejected Saturn 1 option was to employ an Agena stage to replace Atlas-Centaur (proposed about 1962............)
Why was Saturn so much more expensive than Titan?